Millennium: Delos and Maggie
by Ms Slaughter
Summary: A Short Story. The Millennium featuring Delos Redfern & Maggie Neely from Black Dawn.
1. Chapter 1

**Strange Fate:** _Delos & Maggie_

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**Disclaimer**: Canon Characters belong to L J Smith.

Ever in anticipation of Strange Fate, I have a short alternative offering for you all.

Starring Delos Redfern and Maggie Neely...mostly.

A short story.

Miss S

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Chapter One

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Maggie's eyes stared from one beautiful face to the next and she was struck by awe that rendered her silent.

Delos gripped her hand, squeezing her fingers in a gesture meant to be reassuring but it just hurt.

"Maggie Neely this is my cousin Jezebel Redfern, her consort Morgead Blackthorn, and Iliana Dominick." Maggie's eyes moved from jewel-fire green, to silvery blue to pale lilac. "Jez and Iliana are like me."

_Lamia_. She thought.

"Wild Powers." Delos said aloud.

So these were the ones that would stand between the world and its end. She felt renewed awe and the creeping edge of fear rose as she thought of the two young women mastering the deadly Blue Fire.

She cringed inwardly at the thought of their running blood.

Jezebel looked fierce, not a stranger to running blood, but Iliana was soft and sweet with large eyes and parted lips like a damsel from a fairy tale. Maggie had been told that she had slayed a dragon.

Everything was unfamiliar to her and yet nothing could truly shock her, not since she had left the glacial peaks that had concealed Delos' home, hand in hand with the Prince, and new friends surrounding them.

She hadn't seen her family in months, having left only a pathetic little note that couldn't encompass all of what she wanted to say. It was for their safety; and Delos' of course, that she had to leave her old life behind to embark on this adventure, her new life. One with Delos. Her soulmate.

He knew her thoughts before she could even comprehend them and he leaned toward her now to brush his lips gently against her temple.

When he touched her like that her whole body would shiver, the muscles in her stomach went taut and a sigh rolled passed her lips. Sometimes she thought she would faint with desire for him and slip bonelessly to the ground from the weight of her love for him.

"It's a pleasure to meet you." Iliana said breezing forward with a bright smile and immaculate manners. She was so elegant and unconsciously so; it was almost easy to miss the hint of sadness about the corners of her eyes and lilt of her mouth.

There was something eerie about her beauty, something not of this world and it reminded her awfully of Sylvia Weald her brother's late ex-girlfriend. Despite the discomfiting comparison she offered a wide grin. "I'm glad to meet you all." Maggie said and her sincerity brought relaxed smiles to their faces (even the tall, dark haired Lamia who had been hovering and moody behind Jez's shoulder).

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Miss S


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

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"She seems nice." Jez said though there was something in her tone that was forced and it made Delos heckles rise.

"What?" He almost growled.

"She's human, cousin." Jez said almost gently now, her voice overflowing of exquisite sympathy. "She shouldn't stay here with us: it's too dangerous for her."

"I know." He was prepared to be angry but Jez's words were a reflection of his own fears. He hung his head forward, strands of dark hair falling into his eyes. "I know." He repeated softly to solidify his fear in his breast.

Jez's shoulders rose and fell in a weary sigh. "You should let her go home and be with her family."

He lifted his head sharply to glare at his damnable intuitive cousin. "She's my family." He insisted imperiously. It was true, she was the only true family that he felt he could trust, his love for her was greater than anything he had ever known and the loss of it was greater than the looming prospect of the Millennium.

Jez's hand landed on his arm and he startled beneath her cool touch. "You know what I mean, cos." He knew exactly what she meant.

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Miss S


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

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"I've never thought about it." Maggie said with a frown tugging down the corners of her mouth. "It just doesn't seem important with all of this."

"I know what you mean." Iliana said leaning toward Maggie as she spoke, the small girl smelt of honeysuckle sweetness. "It's hard to believe that anything else could be as important."

"What did you want to be before all of this?" Maggie asked, struggling to think of what she had wanted, who she had been before she had looked into Delos' yellow beryl gaze.

"I hadn't decided, maybe an actress or a nurse?" Iliana shrugged delicately and her smile became distant and dreamy. "I thought I'd marry a handsome doctor and we could live in a coastal mansion in Washington and have three beautiful children: two boys and a girl."

Maggie laughed softly, Iliana was so specific. "Why three?" she asked.

"So we could have a fair voting system on movie night."

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Miss S


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four

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Maggie was sitting against the headboard reading a book, she looked lovely with her auburn hair hanging in lazy curls down her shoulders, her soft sorrel eyes moving left to right left to right as she read, she put a finger to her bottom lip, caught up in the novel and then her parted lips bowed in a smile.

"Good book?" He asked and her eyes rose to meet his, the book fell from her hands.

"You look sad." She said, the smile fading from her face. The lamplight lit her fair skin like moonlight and he could see her pulse speed, her veins glowing softly against her skin.

He shook his head from side to side, pushing away the lingering melancholy and the realisation that he would soon have to say goodbye "I've come to say good night." He said but remained standing by the door.

"Good night." She said her eyes never once leaving his. His strong, bold and sweet human soulmate. "Why don't you come and say good night properly?"

He was tempted and he could feel his eye teeth sharpen behind his closed mouth. "I don't trust myself right now." He whispered.

* * *

_Oh_. Maggie's cheeks suffused with colour.

It was the first night in this new house with Delos being so close. They hadn't shared a room until now and there was plenty of room on the Queen sized bed for the both of them.

She was wearing a floral print pyjama top and grey sleep shorts, things that she had hastily taken from her closet before she had run away from home. She began to tug on a button on her shirt, suddenly self-conscious of how young she must have looked.

What didn't he trust himself not to do, she wondered with fear and hope as the butterflies fluttered irrepressibly in her chest.

Her eyes moved away from his, they had taken on an eerie yellow sheen until it looked as if a torch was shining through yellow crystal, she looked at his mouth instead, the full sensuous lips that seemed even more enticing than even a moment before.

She knew what he was hiding behind those lips, two milky-white sabres, his animal teeth made to pierce and rip.

"Delos…" She whispered but couldn't think of how to say all that she desired from him.

* * *

"Good night, Maggie." Delos said and exited the room quickly, closing the door between them and then sagging against it. His body was on fire with need and more need.

Maggie was in danger from him.

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Miss S


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five

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There was a timid knock on the door that woke Maggie from dark rolling dreams of Delos golden brown skin gliding against hers. "Who is it?" She croaked and struggled to sit up and appear awake.

"It's only me." Iliana's pleasant voice intoned from beyond the door.

"Come in." Maggie said and began to run fingers through her wild hair, to tame the wildness but to no effect.

Iliana stepped into the room dressed in an old fashioned sleeping gown and she looked every bit the delicate heroine of an old romantic tale. She was smiling and Maggie smiled back trying not to feel self-conscious of her rumpled pyjama top.

"Did I wake you?" Iliana asked.

"Of course not." Maggie said and gestured for the girl to join her on the bed.

"I wanted to see if you were alright."

"Why wouldn't I be?"

"You're in a house packed to the seams with supernatural creatures, more than half of them designed to eat you." Iliana said. "I was terrified when they first brought me here."

"I'm okay, really." Maggie said. "As long as Delos is here."

"Of course." Iliana said and then giggled behind her hand and it caused Maggie to blush.

"They told my mother I was at summer school." Iliana said. "I don't know how long those kinds of lies will last."

"Do you miss her?"

"Of course, mom and Alex."

Maggie's brow rose.

"My baby brother."

Maggie nodded. "I have an older brother, his name is Miles."

* * *

Miss S


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter Six

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Delos listened to the young women speak from the other side of the door. Their back and forth was light, innocent, like he'd imagine two ordinary seventeen year old girls should be.

He pressed his forehead against the wood and closed his eyes, his chest felt strange, aching and burning with the prospect of confronting Maggie. He wanted to scoop her up into his arms and never let her go, showering her freckled face with kisses and inane whispers of _everything will be okay_.

But it wasn't. It could never be.

Instead his mind was a tangled knot of frustration and fear, how could he find the words to tell her _Goodbye Forever?_

* * *

Miss S


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

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_Goodbye Forever_.

"I'm not leaving." Maggie said her fists clenching by her sides, Steely Neely was resolute and would not back down.

"Maggie." Delos said trying exercise patience and failing as he flashed his sharp teeth. "Don't argue with me." He started softly, gently even but it had soon turned to this. It made him love her a little deeper, a little harder.

"No. You don't argue with me. I get to make the choice and I choose to stay with you."

"You'll die." He hissed. "I'll die."

"Then we'll go out together." She grasped his hand and felt the tremble that had possessed his whole body. "Just don't ask me to leave again. Please."

He was undone. It was the _Please_ that did it. How stupid could he have been, he had try to say goodbye to her before and it hadn't worked. Of course he could let her go, even if it meant putting her in danger he couldn't let her go. He was selfish and the guilt of it hit him like a fist.

He wrapped his arms around her and held her hard against his chest, her head was tucked beneath his chin, breathing in her fragrant hair and delighting in the soft weight of her in his arms. "Maggie." He whispered her name like a totem.

"I love you." She said her voice warbled with tears.

He was incandescent at the sound of those three words: of course he loved her too but they hadn't said it out loud. It sealed their fate together.

_I love you_.

* * *

Miss S


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter Eight

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Maggie Neely would have done anything for Delos Redfern even if he would never ask her for a single thing. She held onto him as if he were the last solid thing in this world and she wasn't frightened that she might crush him with her indelicate embrace or that he would pull away with distaste.

He could die. The thought scared her more than anything she could conceive of and this moment of the two of them clinging to one another as if it were the last time made her hold him a little tighter. It wasn't enough. She wanted more: to be closer, to hold tighter, to never have to let go.

"I'm not going to lose you." She whispered.

* * *

Miss S


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter Nine

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"What's it like?" Iliana asked shyly.

They were sitting on the lawn, taking a break from jogging to sit together in companionable silence until Iliana had asked _that _question.

"What?" She asked feigning ignorance.

"Having a soulmate?"

Maggie studied her friend's profile and there was sadness about her eyes, a longing that made Maggie feel pity. Iliana had been in love, for an instant, briefly. Iliana hadn't told her everything but Maggie had seen the way her eyes followed Prince Galen when he had come to visit.

"It's hard to describe." Maggie said and licked her lips.

"Is it wonderful?"

Maggie drew her shoulders together. "Sometimes not all the time."

Iliana looked at her, her eyes like drenched violets were full of emotion and it made Maggie's throat fill with the blockage of tears. She had to clear her throat before she could speak.

"It's like…It's as if, even though you're completely different people you're the same person, you feel what they feel, they feel what you feel. You know what they want before even they do."

Maggie's eyes grew misty with tears as she was overwhelmed by her feelings as she inadequately tried to describe what she had with Delos. "You want to touch them, to hear them, be surrounded by them all the time and sometimes…sometimes it hurts, sometimes it suffocates."

"When you're not with him do you feel him…calling to you?"

Maggie nodded.

Iliana nodded.

* * *

Miss S


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter Ten

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As the sky was lit with fire and smoke plumed from the destruction of the city, Maggie crouched behind a satin blue Prius, her heart thundering in her chest, her tongue thick with her pulse, paralyzed by fear.

"I can smell you, you filthy human." The shapeshifter said with his half-human half-animal throat. "I can hear your heart beating."

She squeezed her eyes shut, her hands squeezed around a gun, wood and silver bullets in the clip, one in the chamber all she had to do was aim and shoot. She had spent hours over months at the gun range practising for this very moment.

"Why don't you come out?" The shapeshifter suggested and sniggered, sounding like a large dog sneezing. "I'll go easy on you if you do."

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All Delos could think about was getting to his soulmate, even as the blazing white-hot terror of the Blue Fire was eviscerating a horde of shapeshifters. He was seized by horrific pain but his terror for Maggie outstripped even that.

* * *

The barrel of the gun was pointed, albeit shaking, as it was aimed at the half-man half-bear in front of her. He – _it _ – was laughing at her. Brimming with mocking and arrogance it made her jaw clench and she wanted in the moment of blind fury to shoot him for that alone.

"You're not a killer." He said knowingly.

She closed her eyes as she pulled the trigger

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Miss S


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter Eleven

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The Dragon was beautiful.

There was no other way for Maggie to describe him. He was beautiful in the way women were beautiful, his features sensual and elegant and young. She watched Iliana change, a small gasp elicited from her parted lips, her eyes filled with shimmering tears.

The Dragon couldn't keep his eyes from her. They were two characters plucked from the pages of a fairy tale, one stark in black and white and the maiden fair in pastel shades.

"Who are you?" He asked in lightly accented English.

Iliana's tears began to fall.

* * *

Miss S


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter Twelve

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Maggie imagined she was floating in a backdrop of azure and lapis. She was weightless and horizontal and the only real solid feeling was the slender golden brown fingers interlaced with hers.

"If I could have done things differently…" It was Delos' voice wracked with tears."…but you were so stubborn…"

She didn't know what was happening only a suspicion in her heart that this was the end. _I love you._ The end of the world. _I've never loved before you._

* * *

Miss S


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter Thirteen

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It was the end of the world.

Delos couldn't bring himself to care as he held his soulmate in his arms and watched the light leave her eyes as she slipped into death. His was curled over her body, his lips against hers feeling the last vestige of warmth swiftly flee leaving nothing just the phantom of her sweet breath on his face.

His soul was rented, searing as he was separated from what made him whole.

When they found him, the soldiers, they drew back, hesitating with their hands upon their guns, the white knuckled grip slacking on their knife hilts. The Prince threw back his head and keened into the night air, serenaded by the sound of fire and bombs.

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Miss S


End file.
